By Laurie Warshal Cohen, other
An Interfaith community program for remembrance and reflection for Yom HaShoah (Day of Holocaust Remembrance) will feature Dr. Leon Bass, a former history teacher and principal at Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia, Penn. Bass speaks nationwide about his experiences as an African-American soldier in World War II, and his presence at the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp in April, 1945. He will speak in Seattle about “Overcoming Racism and Anti-Semitism from the perspective of an African American” on May 4.
Introducing Dr. Bass will be a special guest: Robbie Waisman of Vancouver, B.C. Waisman was one of the child survivors of Buchenwald, a group that included noted speaker Eli Wiesel. He emigrated to Canada in 1949, where he speaks about his experiences. His life is included in a recent book, The Children of Buchenwald. Waisman says he never forgot Bass and the unit of all-Black liberators at the camp. Years later, Waisman saw a picture of Bass, looked him up, and they have remained in contact ever since.
When Bass was 18, he served in the segregated 183rd Unit, which was attached to General Patton’s Third Army during the Battle of the Bulge. In April 1945, at age 19, he entered Buchenwald concentration camp, just a few days after US troops liberated the camp. He tells his audiences: “On this day in April, 1945, I was going to go through the gates of Buchenwald and I was totally unprepared.” He says he was a witness to history that day, but it also made him realize that human suffering was not limited only to his own people.
For 20 years, he did not speak about his experience. In 1968, however, as a school principal, he walked into a classroom where a survivor was speaking. When he saw the students were inattentive, he informed them that this woman was telling them the absolute truth — he had seen this for himself at Buchenwald.
That meeting ended his silence.
He began to speak about his own wartime experiences, and when he addresses audiences today, he recounts the details of what he witnessed to help people consider the repercussions of racism, discrimination, and dehumanizing policies. He says that he walked into the camp an angry black soldier, and left it with a dedication to speak out against any racism.
He tells his audiences, “I didn’t come here to tell you a horror story. History cannot be swept under the rug. Slavery was evil and immoral. The Holocaust is another example of evil in our history. Someone has to stand up, someone has to dare to be a Daniel and say, ‘this evil cannot continue.’”
Along with Dr. Bass’s presentation, there will be a candle lighting ceremony, the presentation of the Jacob Friedman Holocaust Creative Writing Contest Awards, and the presentation of the Excellence in Education Award to Sobibor survivor and author Thomas Blatt.
The program, which will take place at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle on May 4, 2003 from 2–4 p.m., highlights a week of Yom HaShoah observances and is sponsored by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, Temple De Hirsch Sinai, The American Jewish Committee, The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, B’nai B’rith, Kline Galland Center, Jewish Club of Washington, Emanuel Congregation, and Maplewood Presbyterian Church. Special thanks as well to The Claremont Hotel.
Contact Laurie Warshal Cohen or Miriam Greenbaum at (206) 441-5747 or [email protected] for more information.